


Destiny Or Coincidence?

by Marijane_Akuma



Series: Opposites Attract Each Other [5]
Category: No Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Children, Escape, First Meetings, Fluff, Friendship, From The Lab, Innocence, Kid-Jahal, Kid-Kanri, LITERALLY, Other, Refugee, Stern Parents, Suspicions, as in, at least a bit, fluff?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-26
Updated: 2015-09-26
Packaged: 2018-04-23 13:02:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,124
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4877884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marijane_Akuma/pseuds/Marijane_Akuma
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kanri and Jahal meeting as children, just with the difference that Kanri is a nervous and constantly-suspicious nerve-wreck experiencing someone being nice to him for the first time ever. And reacting adorably to it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Destiny Or Coincidence?

**Author's Note:**

> I just wanted fluff okay. And imagine them as little kids yes, they would be the human embodiments to the word "adorable".  
> This is an old one as well.

 

Destiny or conincidence?

 

He was seven when he met him for the first time.

 

He didn´t like his outfit.  
He didn´t like his stiff suit that made it hard to move. He didn´t like the tight ponytail that held his hair back, it made his head itch all over and he wasn´t allowed to loose it or scratch his scalp. He didn´t like the tie that cut into his neck and stole his air.

He didn´t like the people around them.   
How they looked at him. Those were Mommy´s and Daddy´s friends, but he didn´t want to be friends with them. Their grins and smiles were false. Their nice words were false. He couldn´t stand it. But he had to endure. He _always_ had to endure it.

But this time it was different. The evening was over and they were about to go –finally, finally home- but stopped. He stopped when the hand he held onto stopped. He looked up to his Mommy and saw her smiling at someone that talked with his Daddy. He huffed in annoyance, but other than usually he didn´t get a scolding look. He looked longingly to their car, the driver shot him a compassionate smile, then, he looked around further.   
It was dark already and the streets were wet, it must have rained while they´d been in the building. Then he heard them. Shouts. Angry shouts from grown men. His curiosity got the better of him and he accomplished it to slip away unnoticed.   
He followed the shouts that got louder with each step he took. He halted however, when he stood at the opening to a dark and thin alley. The shouts got quieter now, more and more, and he assumed the shouting men run into another direction. He was about to turn and go back to his parents before they could worry, but he stopped when he heard running. Hectic and stumbling running, from someone as little as him, at least. He peeked deeper into the shadow but suddenly there was a flash of white and he was tackled to the ground, just after he´d heard hard breathing. He had squeezed his eyes shut upon feeling the impact, but opened them quickly. There lied someone that really was as little as him on top of him.   
It was a boy as well with much and nearly shining white hair, which was now all over them. He questioned in his mind how this boy could have so much hair. Because it really was so _._ Much. _Hair_. Half of his face was covered by it as well, but Jahal was sure he´d seen blood on his cheek just now. The second thing he noticed was that the boy was downright _gorgeous_. But apparently the boy on top of him was in a hurry. He sucked in a deep breath before hastily scrambling to his feet. After he was up on his feet and already looking around, Jahal jumped to his feet as well. The other boy was nervously fidgeting and looking around before starting to run away again. Jahal stepped forward “Wait!” he called out and was about to follow the other boy, but he was stopped by a soft hand he knew all too well which grabbed his.   
His mother pulled him back abruptly and thus stopped him from going after the other boy, which resulted in him to be left watching the other disappear in the shadow of the alley. He didn´t really listen to his mother while she scolded him for running off, he was too busy carving every detail of this boy into his memory, from the white hair, the soft looking skin, the grey eye that looked like it held a storm in it to the beautifully sculptured features. He wouldn´t forget him so easily.

 

He was 10 when he saw him again.   
Again, he wore one of these annoying suits, but it fit better this time. His face mirrored his boredom, but he plastered the occasional smile onto it as long as it took one of the many “friends” of his parents to greet him, maybe make a hollow compliment, before he or she would ignore him and talked to his parents, or rather, his father. Not many of these “friends” talked with his mother, which always stood on his father´s side and smiled charmingly. The ones who did however, were mostly the wives of other men. Or one made her a less but still hollow compliment. At this time, Jahal knew for sure that he didn´t want to become like his parents. Sure, he enjoyed the life style they had and was grateful and he knew he had a really good life… but he didn´t want to be surrounded by those same hollow, boring and most of all false people. Especially not while having to consider them as “friends”.   
                But enough of the boring people. This time it wasn´t way past sunset, it was in the middle of the day and they weren´t coming from some party, but were about to return home from some ~~impossibly boring~~ important meeting. Though many from said meeting were now outside, drunk champagne, talked about ~~even more boring~~ interesting and important things and tried to seem important while not leaving the red carpet they stood on, as well as the half-shadow provided by the sun-umbrellas they stood beneath. Jahal told his mother that he would look around and she reminded him not to leave the carpet so that he wouldn´t get lost. “Yes mother.” He answered and was off.   
While strolling around and avoiding conversations he didn´t want to have – really, **no** \- it happened that he reached edge of the carpet. He didn´t leave the carpet, though, but walked along the edge while scanning the street for something interesting.

When he came to a point where he stood in front of an alley, he halted however, because he saw a flash of grey-ish white that quickly disappeared behind a box that stood further off in the alley. He looked around to see if anyone noticed him, which no one had, and left the carpet to go into the alley. He stopped for a moment when actually standing in the alley – could it be him? Or was it just a trick of the light? Imagination? Maybe some old insane dude? Or even a dangerous animal? He shook his head quickly, which made his long dreadlocks smack him into his face –he finally convinced his mother not to tie them back to a ponytail- and walked forward, though slowly this time.   
The closer he got to the box, the more he leaned forward and braced himself to run if needed. When he heard quiet breathing from someone that had to be young, he relaxed slightly and his hopes got up a little bit more. He stopped right next to the box and peeked around the corner with wide yellow eyes. And stared into a stormy grey one that was widened in what seemed to be fear. The boy from years ago sat there, pressed to the wall; his hair still covered what was the left eye for him but the right for Jahal, he seemed to hold his breath and he didn´t look away as if he feared Jahal would attack him the moment he did. Instead of attacking him –not that he ever would of course- Jahal smiled sheepishly and righted his stance, so that he stood fully in front of the other boy. He noticed that the long white hair was far from combed, as it lay on the ground, and it was getting darker if you followed its trail to the tips, which were dark enough to be seen as a dull black. Jahal felt the strange need to wash and comb it, but most of all touch it, to see if it was still soft (after it was cleaned from the crust of dirt of course) but he suppressed the strange feeling as quickly as he noticed it. He widened his smile while crouching down carefully so that his clothes wouldn´t get dirty (his mother wouldn´t let him hear the end of it) and placed his hands on his knees that were now at the same high as his chest was. “Hello.” He started and the other flinched before blinking and scanning Jahal twice. Then he nodded in greeting.   
Jahal tilted his head to the side in curiosity, which made his hair slide over his back. The white-haired boy followed the movement with his eye before letting his gaze snap back to the other´s face. “Um… can you speak?” the other stared for a moment at him before hesitantly nodding again. Now Jahal understood that the other was either afraid or very shy. Or both. But he wouldn´t give up so easily.

 He bit his bottom lip for a moment – a habit his mother would instantly scold him for. “I´m Jahal. Want to tell me your name?” the other´s eye widened in fear and he pressed himself more to the wall, as if trying to get away. “Oh –uh -you – you don´t have to if you don´t want to I…”, he bit his lip for a moment again, not sure if he should say it, but decided to do it, “… we uh, we met before and I just uhm… wanted to talk to you and…”, he trailed off when the other was just staring at him and a thought hit him. “Oh, I guess you don´t remember, but that isn´t bad or-” the other arched forward a bit, just with his head though. “I remember! I do remember! I – I ran into you and we fell to the ground! I remember everything that happened!” he whisper-shouted and Jahal suppressed it to make a face at the horribly scratchy voice. He sounded like he didn´t talk for a looooooong time, which was probably the reason he only whispered – because it was all he could do. “Oh, that´s good then… so, what I wanted to say, uhm, that I thought that maybe you uh… I mean, only of you want, I know it may sound stupid and we don´t know each other at all, so maybe it sounds selfish, I _bet_ it sounds selfish but uhm…” he trailed off again at the plain stare he got and felt his face heat up. Good thing he had dark skin, his skin wasn´t tinted red, but surely it got darker. The boy blinked, relaxed visibly and even crouched a bit closer, maybe a few inches, if even, but still. “Yeah?” he whispered to make Jahal go on, who was surprised by that, because he didn´t expect the other to answer at all. He then noticed that the other wasn´t just staring – but seemed interested. “I thought that maybe you want to… to become friends with me?” he asked quietly and prepared for having to say it again, because he spoke so quiet at the end, he practically only moved his lips. But the other boy seemingly heard him perfectly, which he did, but Jahal didn´t know by that time that the other boy had more than just very good hearing. “…Karanis.” The boy answered, while hiding half his face behind his knees, though he blinked up at Jahal without letting his gaze drop from his dark face. Actually he sat in a very similar way, but other than Jahal he actually sat on the ground and while his knees were drawn to his chest, he had his arms around them and his hands clung tightly at his ripped pants. “Huh?” Jahal made out of confusion. “My name. It´s … it´s Karanis.”

“Karanis?”

“Y-yes… that´s… that´s my name.”

“I like it.” Jahal smiled – because he really did. The other´s eye widened for a moment at that.

“So… do you live on the street? Or do you have a home?” Jahal asked, even though he knew it was a rude question.

“I don´t have a home… or a family.” Jahal bit his lip again. Karanis didn´t seem to care about the habit, which was… nice, for a change.

“Then… you want to live with me? I mean uh us? I uhm… our house is pretty big, there are plenty of free rooms.” The other clearly hesitated and scanned Jahal again. Jahal saw him tightening his arms around his legs.

“Who are the others?”

“Just my parents and uhm…” Jahal looked away, “…some servants. But those are really nice people – I mean the servants.” Jahal would be scolded if he said that in front of his mother. If his father would notice, he would maybe even slap him across the face.

“And your parents? Are they bad people?” the question wasn´t offending, it wasn´t mean or greedy for dirty details, like Jahal was used to it. It was an honest question, filed with pure curiosity… and maybe a little bit fear.

Jahal hesitated – he´d never thought about his parents like that. “Well… they´re not bad, but not really good either? I mean, they aren´t mean or heartless, they aren´t cold but not exactly… _warm_.” Jahal struggled to find the right words, but this problem was solved by Karanis for him.

“Neutral.” He stated like it was a matter of fact. And Jahal found this word to be very fitting.

“Yeah, kinda.” They both smiled, and though Jahal couldn´t actually see Karanis smile, he was sure he did – somehow.

“Soooo… I guess you should come with me then.” Jahal stated before slowly standing up; his legs had gone slightly numb in the uncomfortable position. Karanis looked up at him for a moment and just stared, as if weighting up if this was a good decision, before he stood up as well. Jahal then noticed that Karanis was way littler than him, he barely reached his chin. However, his hair reached down to the ground and some inches lay flatly on the ground still, even though he was standing fully. In addition, he was very thin, but not in an ill-looking way, more like… _like_ _a porcelain-figure_ Jahal thought.  Because the boy wasn´t just very pretty but just kind of looking _fragile_ , filigree even. You could even say he was the embodiment of the word “petite”, even though he was a boy. Wait – was he? Jahal had been sure Karanis was a boy, but the longer he looked at Karanis, there more he could possibly be a girl. He was tiny, but boys could be as well… Jahal had long hair himself, though his has never been this soft… and he was sure he has never seen such a puppet-like face, or such filigree arms, hands or fingers, that looked like they could break the moment you touched them. Like bubbles, or glass figures, or porcelain-figures… but his voice wasn´t that of a girl… and his eyelashes may´ve been long, but were too short for a girl… no wait, eyelashes weren´t a factor when it came to decide between two genders…

The staring confused Karanis. Jahal stared at him for over two minutes now since he stood and he was starting to feel very uncomfortable. Not that he ever felt comfortable before, but now it was getting worse. With a quick but as little as possible movement, he let the hair fall more into his face to cover his left eye before gulping some spit to wet his throat. “Is- is something wrong?” that came out as a mix between a horribly scratchy voice and a whisper.

“Just trying to find out if you´re boy or girl…” Jahal murmured still staring concentrated before shock, accompanied by embarrassment, washed over his face and he clapped his hands over his mouth. Karanis sure as hell felt himself blushing as well. It wasn´t the first time someone found his appearance to be confusing, but never did someone think he might be a girl. Girls were (mostly) pretty and boys were only considered as maybe female when they were really pretty and had a girly face (in a pretty way). If Jahal thought that he could maybe be a girl, then it meant Jahal thought he was pretty (enough to be a girl). Or he had a girly-face, which would hurt his manly pride, so in the end he wasn´t sure if he should feel flattered or offended.

Jahal took his hands off his mouth but seemingly didn´t know what to do with them, so he just let them flare around. “I mean, not that you couldn´t be a boy, like, uh, I mean, you´re really pretty and you´re so uhm you look so breakable and filigree and I know your hair is very soft and I should stop talking now.” He seemed not only utterly embarrassed but also helpless and somehow Karanis couldn´t other than laugh.

It was quiet, scratchy and not really pretty, since he didn´t laugh since… well, at all until now, to be exactly, but it was there. He laughed and it felt good, better than he ever imagined. And he laughed really long, without even really knowing what was so funny. “I´m – I´m a boy.” He wheezed out and tried to stifle some remaining giggles with his hands. Jahal found that made him look like a girl even more, but he didn´t say anything.

Karanis followed the boy. He was young, yes, but he was smart. Very smart, though he was afraid as well. He was sure the boy´s parents wouldn´t take someone like him in just like that. He needed something to convince them to do it. He walked behind the boy who was actually really interesting and seemed to be nice - he didn´t lie, at least. From his position, Karanis –huh, he would´ve to get used to a name, good thing he could choose it himself- made a fist and tested his muscles. Good, they were still as capable as before. He was sure he found a way to convince the parents.   
He hesitated for a moment before he left the dark alley and stepped into the broad daylight. While Jahal walked through the crowd of obviously wealthy people, Karanis scanned each of them for possible threats to him (and or the boy, but he wouldn´t admit it back then) though most of them didn´t even notice them. Those who did pretended they didn´t see them or made a disgusted face upon seeing Karanis. He tried hard not to glare at them – it could make him suspicious. Jahal stopped suddenly and his gaze focused on a group of four people (two couples) that stood directly next to the pole of one of the umbrellas. _Perfect_.   
Even though he was sure he could convince them, Karanis still became a bit nervous.

A terribly big bit.

Jahals pace sped up, but he seemed to restrain himself to only walk and not run. Karanis noticed that his stance was stiffer now. With a little jerk of his head, he made sure his hair hid his left eye and then they stood next to one of the couples.   
Both adults had brown hair and dark skin, though the skin of the woman was a much lighter hue than the man´s really dark one. Both were tall and the woman had long, healthy looking hair in a complicated hairstyle. The hair of the man was short and trimmed cleanly. Both wore fancy clothing, but then again, everyone on this carpet did – except Karanis, that is.   
Jahal got the attention of his mother by lightly yanking on her sleeve. The men ignored them and continued to talk, but after his mother looked down the other woman did as well and their gazes soon fell on Karanis who tried to smile as politely as possible. “Mom, this is my friend Karanis…uhm… can we take him with us? He has no home or family.” Jahal explained sheepishly. The mother looked from Karanis, to her son, back to Karanis, who was getting even more nervous. She wouldn´t recognize him, right? She wasn´t one of them, right? A second passed, then another, and the woman still stared. Karanis wetted his lips. “I bid a good day Madam.” He said politely and half-bowed-nodded with a hopefully charming smile. His hands were clasped behind his back where they, hidden by his hair, wringed violently. The woman blinked and turned further to him with a little “thank you”, which got the attention of her husband who looked down to Karanis as well, whose smile faltered a little bit at the stern look.   
“Who´s this?” if Karanis wouldn´t be used to this tone, he would have flinched from its sharpness. But he was used to it – was used to worse. “I´m Karanis.” He answered without so much as batting his eye. The woman slightly leaned up to her husband. “Jahal asked to take him with us. He said they are friends.” She informed him and his expression got even sterner as he pulled his brows further together, if that was even possible. “Why should we? What´s the benefit in having to feed another mouth?” he asked sharply and Karanis noticed that Jahal flinched at that. Slightly so, but still.

Karanis didn´t like it.

“I can be of great use Sir. As a bodyguard, I don´t even have to get paid.” Karanis answered as if the man had used a casual tone, not one that formed the expression he would rather cut both his hands off than take Karanis in. Both men snorted, the women glanced at each other with questioning gazes. “We can hire the best bodyguards there are, why should we choose a little kid instead?” Karanis hesitated a second – then glanced to Jahal who was losing hope and whose shoulders slowly sagged – before he decided to get through with this, since he already started. “I´m really strong Sir, even if it doesn´t seem so. I can prove it.” He said coolly. The man seemed slightly confused but was determined not to show it. “Then prove it.” Karanis nodded and when he walked to the pole the grown-ups let him through by stepping aside.   
He gripped the metal pipe firmly with one hand, his fingers didn´t reach around fully, but that was okay. He tested it out and stretched his fingers again. “There is a block of cement at the end of those, they are heavier than all of us together.” The man who wasn´t Jahal´s father informed Karanis; Karanis only glanced at him. Then, he lifted the umbrella together with the block of cement without that much trouble. It was lighter than he thought it would be. With the still lifted umbrella he looked around to Jahal´s father. All four adults were stunned speechless, Jahal had it hard not to grin.   
The grown-ups around them looked at him as well, some just flabbergasted, others scared. The other pair next to him seemed nearly horrified and more so the longer he held it up without any trouble. The other gown-ups´ expressions began to match theirs and well, maybe he didn´t think that through. Of course seeing super-human-strength would be frightening. When he looked at Jahal again though, he couldn´t look away.   
Instead of the expected scared (ha was a kid after all) or disgusted expression Karanis expected, he was met with a thrilled grin and sheer happiness and awe. It was a stunning sight and for a moment there, the world seemed to disappear and everything zeroed in on that beautiful grin that burned itself into Karanis´ memories. He was ripped back to reality by the sudden heat that began to rise to his head. Quickly, he looked down to the side and turned his face to the carpet before setting the umbrella back down to the ground. Jahal hesitated an inch away from the fabric before yanking at the brim of his father´s sleeve. His father needed a moment before he looked down to his son. “Can we take him with us _now_?” he asked with so much innocence it stunned Karanis. He made a decision at this very moment.

“Yes… yes of course.”

He would protect this boy with all his inhuman might.

**Author's Note:**

> Well, if you ask me, he does react adorably. If you ask me that is.


End file.
